As Iran's rulers were trying to quell protests by blocking internet access, the US sneaked in thousands of Starlink internet consoles to keep demonstrators connected, it was reported on Thursday.
The US State Department bought at least 7,000 Starlink terminals, and President Donald Trump was aware of the efforts to smuggle them into Iran, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The State Department and White House did not immediately comment.
Farzaneh Badiei, a digital governance analyst who supports global internet access and grew up in Iran, said Starlink is banned by Tehran, so news that the US smuggled terminals into the country would increase Iranian officials' opposition to it.
“I am not happy that this was leaked in the first place,” she said. “The internet is used for all sorts of things and this just supports the Islamic Republic's narrative that it is used by enemies of the people.”
Possession of Starlink, a type of low-earth-orbit satellite technology, will continue to be regarded as espionage by the ruling regime.
Starlink's use in Iran came under into the spotlight last month as the regime brutally suppressed widespread protests in a clampdown that left thousands dead.
Owned by Elon Musk, the service was activated in Iran during a government-imposed internet blackout. It was not clear how many terminals operated in the country.
Recent data from Iran appeared to show that while the blackout had been somewhat lifted, most technology experts, internet monitoring groups and Iranians living abroad said access remains heavily filtered and largely blocked.
According to NetBlocks, which routinely tracks internet cuts and monitors digital governance, Iran's internet blackout was among the longest recorded.
The Tehran government has rejected allegations of a continuing internet clampdown, but acknowledged that access in the country has not returned to that before nationwide protests began at the end of December.
“The current disruptions stem from restrictions beyond the control of the Ministry of Communications,” Behzad Akbari, Iran's deputy minister of communications, wrote in a post on X last week.
